KOKO: We’ll gonna go to Linda Homilla live at the Comelec. She is joined by more senatorial aspirants. Go ahead, Linda.

LINDA: Thanks, Koko. Well, we have here Mr. Lito David, Mr. JC de los Reyes, and Atty Marwil Llasos. Gentlemen, good afterrnoon. Thank you for joining us. Let me talk first to JC. Of course, a familiar face to our voters having run in 2010 presidential elections. How are you, JC.

JC: I am ok.

LINDA: What made you decide to run again.

JC: I was nominated by the party. I accepted. And my goal is to push the party platform and its principles.

LINDA: And of course Lito you also ran in 2010 as a senatorial candidate of JC.

LITO: I was asked again by the party. And I follow wishes of the party.

LINDA: And Atty. Llasos, you are a new comer to the party.

MARWIL: Yes, I am a political virgin. I am new to these things. That is why it is an experience for me.

LINDA: Of course, I am assuming that you will all have a central platform and legislation. And I’ll ask JC to be the spokesman.

JC: That’s what makes the Ang Kapatiran Party different. If there is someone who does not abide to the platform and principles, we remove him. Everybody will have to adhere to one symphony orchestra and one conductor. And that conductor is our platform. We are here to push the platform. Legislate the anti-political dynasty. Go all out against the pork barrel system. Those funds should be aligned to the priority projects of the smallest barangay. Then gun control that the Ang Kapatiran has been fighting for a long time. And fight for the FOI.

LINDA: I’ll ask you about the current issues. FOI—you are for FOI. How about the Cyber-Crime Law which is all the rage right now? Are you for it or amending it?

(JC gives the mike to Marwil)

MARWIL: Actually, yesterday I was interviewed in the radio. I said there are good provisions in the Cyber-Crime Provision Act. But there was inserted that is not good and this is fearsome because it is so repressive, for example the libel that was inserted in the Cyber-Crime Prevention Act. This is oppressive and is not proper to the democracy that must reign in our country. The Filipino people has no way out here. What gives me the reason to run for Senate in the coming elections, I saw that it is possible to insert a provision in the law that was not debated and the senators does not know. No public hearing. That is so contrary to the idea of parliamentary democracy: debate, discuss, and consult the Filipinos, especially the stakeholders in the law. So I see if that is how it is done, there is no hope for the people, it is time to change.

LINDA: Next issue: Reproductive health bill. There is a possibility that they may not pass it. There is a possibility that it may be carried over to the next Congress.

LITO: We will fight it out. In our party our stand is that it is not needed, because there are laws. And it is already in the mandate of the Department of Health the things that must be done for women, mothers, infants, and babies to be born. You do not need a new law if the intention is just money, because those who make condoms and contraceptives will have their life simpler. No more marketing is needed because the government will buy from them. And you know how much money one gets from those contraceptives and condoms? That one brand of condom how much they sold last year? 4 million pieces, 2 million pills, 1 million injectables, and 300,000 IUDs. That is big money. Especially if you put government money there. And the government will spend millions and millions for something that is not needed by our women.

LINDA: Alright. Thank you very much for your time gentlemen and we wish you luck in the coming campaign. Koko, Those are the candidates for Ang Kapatiran party.

I have no more energy right now to think about libel in the internet. In the days when there are only few newspapers and books, it is easy to pinpoint the culprit and charge him in court. Now, with the explosion of social media, how would the government police the internet, unless it wants to be like Communist China? I think the solution is not a new civil law but the rediscovery of the law of conscience: no one charges the person with libel except his own conscience. He then goes to the priest in the confessional and tell the priest the sins he committed in the number and kind. Then the sinner awaits the judgement of the priest who will give him his penance–pray the rosary, go to mass, ask forgiveness from his neighbor, etc. Then the sinner says the Act of Contrition and the priest absolve his sins in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Catholic Church has 2,000 years of experience of thinking about thinking, and She has classified every conceivable sin in its minute detail according to gravity of the matter, fullness of the consent, and fullness of knowledge. What is needed therefore is not a new civil law but ethics education in all public and private schools–an ethics education based on Ten Commandments as taught by the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

For example, internet libel falls under the 8th commandment: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Under this commandment are the the following sins listed in the Catechism (articles 2475-2482): false witness and perjury, rash judgment, detraction, calumny, boasting, lying. The use of Social Communications Media is covered articles 2493-2499. Some excerpts:

2497 By the very nature of their profession, journalists have an obligation to serve the truth and not offend against charity in disseminating information. They should strive to respect, with equal care, the nature of the facts and the limits of critical judgment concerning individuals. They should not stoop to defamation.

2498 “Civil authorities have particular responsibilities in this field because of the common good…. It is for the civil authority… to defend and safeguard a true and just freedom of information.” By promulgating laws and overseeing their application, public authorities should ensure that “public morality and social progress are not gravely endangered” through misuse of the media. Civil authorities should punish any violation of the rights of individuals to their reputation and privacy. They should give timely and reliable reports concerning the general good or respond to the well-founded concerns of the people. Nothing can justify recourse to disinformation for manipulating public opinion through the media. Interventions by public authority should avoid injuring the freedom of individuals or groups.

2499 Moral judgment must condemn the plague of totalitarian states which systematically falsify the truth, exercise political control of opinion through the media, manipulate defendants and witnesses at public trials, and imagine that they secure their tyranny by strangling and repressing everything they consider “thought crimes.”